Leviticus 27:17,18 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Bible Comments

If he sanctify his field from the year of jubilee That is, if the vow has been made immediately after the jubilee, then the land requiring a homer of barley-seed is to be valued at fifty shekels, as before mentioned. If after the jubilee That is, some considerable time after, then the priest was to deduct from the above rate of fifty shekels, either more or less, according as more or fewer years remained till the next jubilee. For no land could be alienated for a longer period than forty-nine years, that is, from one jubilee to another, except in the case after mentioned. If he will not redeem the field If the owner choose rather to part with his land than redeem it at the price which the priest hath set upon it, and the priest, upon his refusal, have sold it, or rather let it, till the next jubilee, to another man; then he that vowed it shall be excluded from all future privilege of redemption; and, when the jubilee is come, the land shall return to the priesthood for ever. For preventing ambiguity, instead of, If he have sold the field, it ought to be rendered, If the priest have sold, as in the Arabic version; or, If it be sold to another, as in the Vulgate; for the he cannot refer to the owner or vower of the land, as our version makes it, since the vower had no power to sell the land after he had consecrated it, but it was to be sold or let by the priest or treasurer of the sanctuary, who converted the price thereof to a holy use.

Leviticus 27:17-18

17 If he sanctify his field from the year of jubile, according to thy estimation it shall stand.

18 But if he sanctify his field after the jubile, then the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years that remain, even unto the year of the jubile, and it shall be abated from thy estimation.